siblings

A visit to Jabliya to see my friends in the Ezbet Abed Rabbo region. Aboud (above) seems to be improving from his post-war trauma, as slowly does B, the teenage sister of my friends. Today’s visit was to catch up with them, but also to see the latest addition to the extended family.

Abdel Hakim, born roughly 1 month ago, is healthy and faring well, contrary to my concerns. I’d worried about his mother’s health, pregnant and stressed during the massacre. Another friend had had a miscarriage, and many pregnant women were having premature babies…

As we sat outside, in shade and breeze, and talked –she, her father-in-law, my friend, his friends…her oldest son came and asked to hold the newborn. Contrary to practices I’ve known from home, children here are encouraged to hold and care for their siblings.

“I showed him how to balance a baby in his arms, how to hold its head carefully, how to rock him to sleep. He loves holding his little brother,” she told me. And everywhere I go, I see little kids, not much older than their siblings, delicately caring for their precious younger brother or sister. It seems this would forge a closer bond than otherwise, the older sibling parentally taking an interest in the younger’s well-being.

*Abdullah, during the attacks. He remained very distressed, nervous and showing signs of post-traumatic stress for the 6 months after the massacre. Only now is he beginning to seem slightly improved.

International Journalism Award From Mexican Press Club March 2017

about me

Eva Bartlett is an independent writer and rights activist with extensive experience in Syria and in the Gaza Strip, where she lived a cumulative three years (from late 2008 to early 2013). She documented the 2008/9 and 2012 Israeli war crimes and attacks on Gaza while riding in ambulances and reporting from hospitals.
Since April 2014, she has visited Syria 7 times, including two months in summer 2016 and one month in Oct/Nov 2016 and her latest visit in June 2017 (to Aleppo, Homs, al-Waer, Madaya, al-Tall, Damascus).
Her early visits included interviewing residents of the Old City of Homs, which had just been secured from militants, and visiting historic Maaloula after the Aramaic village had been liberated of militants. In December 2015, Eva returned to old Homs to find life returning, small shops opened, some of the damaged historic churches holding worship anew, and citizens preparing to celebrate Christmas once again.
On her 5th visit in June-August 2016, she went twice to Aleppo, also visiting Palmyra, Masyaf, Jableh, Tartous, and Barzeh district of Damascus, as well as returning again to Maaloula and Latakia.
On her sixth visit to Syria, in October and November, she visited Aleppo twice more, as well as areas around Damascus. The testimonies Eva gathered in Aleppo starkly contrasted narratives corporate media had been asserting.
Many of her published Syria writings, videos, photos can be found at this link:
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/